


The Baby-Stealer's Club

by faith_girl222 (faithgirl)



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: 2015 NHL Off-Season, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Babies, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Getting Together, M/M, Slow Build, Team Babies and Kids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-24
Updated: 2016-04-24
Packaged: 2018-06-04 03:34:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6639748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faithgirl/pseuds/faith_girl222
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All the babies Sid and Geno didn't steal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Baby-Stealer's Club

**Author's Note:**

  * For [melk24](https://archiveofourown.org/users/melk24/gifts).



Geno is the baby in his family, his brother and cousins all older than him. When the lock out leaves Gonch without an NHL team for the indefinite future and he winds up playing for Magnitka, Natalie is two. For Geno, it's like having a baby sibling at last. They get on like a house on fire, Natalie demanding Gonch bring Geno home at every opportunity. Geno is at their house so often that year he practically lived there. 

She's four by the time he gets to Pittsburgh and actually is living with the Gonchars. She has had all new hockey players to boss around for the last year, but she and Sid seem equally determined to monopolize all of Geno's spare time. She isn't a baby anymore, she is always seriously telling Geno; she doesn't need him to carry her around all the time anymore.

Geno watches Sid with his Little Penguins, racing them across the ice while they shriek with delight, and he wonders how best to suddenly join them on the ice. At home, Sid is always being roped into babysitting a Lemieux or two, helping them with homework or beating them at video games; he usually invites Geno over to be "a second pair of hands" (an English idiom Geno finds hilarious). 

Sid is the oldest in his family, and a lot older than his sister. Geno can tell that just from how much Sid seems to mother hen her, despite having lived away from home for more than five years. It's adorable, but Sid seems completely immune to his chirps about how cute Geno finds it.

But actual babies are another thing entirely.

When they get Duper at the trade deadline, Carol-Lyne is super pregnant. Pregnant enough that she stays down in Atlanta for another month, and Zoe is born down there. The first time the team meets Zoe is during the second round of the 2008 playoffs, when Carol-Lyne brings her into the Iceoplex one day after practice, with two toddlers in tow.

Geno has never really had an opportunity before to see how Sid was with babies, he realizes as they all crowd around the stroller.

It's hard to disagree with his sentiment when Max yells, "Are you gonna make a break for it, Sid?" as Duper places her into Sid's arms. But it's just as hard not to be sympathetic; Geno kind of wants to steal her too, along with her big brother and sister.

\---

It's the start of a pattern, like Shero is intentionally trading for players with pregnant wives. Kuni's first kid, Zach, is born just before the 2009 playoffs, only a few weeks after the the trade deadline and the birth of Gonch's second daughter, Victoria.

Geno is kind of a mess over Victoria—she is so tiny! And Natalie is getting so big!—but Sid is in some sort of baby heaven, enough to rival Kuni's glow of first-time fatherhood. Sid gets this look in his eyes, that Flower calls his "baby hungry" eyes and the closer they get to the Final, the crazier the look in Sid's eyes gets, like he's imagining putting all those babies in the Cup every time Geno follows him out onto the ice.

Geno tries chirping him about it, once, but Sid has his number, isn't blind to how baby crazy Geno is too. 

Sid insists all the babies go in the Cup at every party that follows their win -- "I can hide behind the cup and help them sit up!" Sid offers every time, like his ass isn't too big to hide behind anything.

He collects everyone's Cup day photos with their little kids in the Cup (which mostly means Geno doesn't have to do it himself, because he steals the files off Sid's computer).

\---

One of the top five worst things about Sid's concussion (because of course Sid makes a list for Geno when Geno asks how he's doing) is that he can't really even hang out with crying babies when his headaches are so bad, and he definitely can't carry one with how shot his balance is.

"I haven't seen Lola in _weeks_ ," Sid says moodily from where he's shoved against Geno's side on the sectional. Geno puts his arm around him, because at least that's a limb that works properly. "What if I'm not well enough to even meet Kuni's second kid?" Sid asks quietly. Kuni's daughter isn't due until the regular season is over. Geno tightens his arm around Sid.

"You get better, Sid. Not gonna have no hockey and no babies for rest of life."

Geno can't really carry babies safely either with his fucked knee, but Victoria isn't there to be held anyway because some people are jerks and moved to _Ottawa_ instead of being a Penguin forever.

"Baby-holding should be part of my PT," Sid mutters. Geno would agree, except there isn't really anything a physio therapist can do for Sid right now.

"Get you lots babies and hockey," Geno promises.

\---

Because of the stupid lockout, Geno isn't there when Alex is born. Sid stayed behind when Geno went to play in the KHL even though he was clearly desperate to be playing again, and Geno feels pretty sure Alex's due date was part of that choice. Geno is also pretty sure Alex is part of why Sid finally upgraded his phone, because between Thanksgiving and Geno's return to the US after New Year's, Sid sends him a _lot_ of baby pictures and blurry selfies of Sid holding Alex.

By the time Geno sees Sid in person again, he's starting to seriously wonder if Sid actually _has_ stolen Alex.

"No baby?" Geno asks Sid in the locker room, where Sid's shoulder is bizarrely absent the bundle of Alex. Sid just grins and laughs, like he hasn't been torturing Geno with baby pictures for weeks.

Tanger laughs in his face during practice. "More like we stole Sid. He's definitely spent more nights in our spare room than _everywhere_ else." Which at least had probably made everything less awkward with Mario during the lockout, if Sid was almost never home.

Geno builds a nursery when he does his other renos, on the premise that Max and Kate are living with him and he needs a reasonable space for his goddaughter. When they move out he'll keep it the same—it isn't like they won't visit all the time, or like his other friends aren't all having babies too. It'll be a good argument for hosting team events whenever his house isn't already full of overseas guests; maybe he'll even be able to convince Sid to finally visit.

His mom kind of makes fun of him, but in a gentle way. Geno knows she wants grandkids almost as much as Geno wants kids, and Denis has been slow to provide.

\---

Estelle is born two weeks after Sid takes a puck to the face, and he meets her for the first time high on pain meds. Probably the only reason Sid doesn't steal her is that he's too afraid to stand up while holding her; pain meds agree with Sid only marginally better than a concussion.

Geno gets to hold her next, because although Geno drove to Flower's, he magnimoniously let Sid go first. He finds he has to talk himself down from making a fast getaway, using Sid as a distraction. Flower's smile is knowing and sharklike.

Stupid goalie eyes.

\---

After Estelle, Geno starts really thinking about it.

He's about to turn 27, he's just about to sign an 8 year extension (and if the new CBA didn't prevent it, Geno would sign something longer, like Sid's), everything about starting to plan for a family makes sense until he and Oksana break up again. It's more amicable than their other splits, and it feels more permanent.

The Penguins get knocked out of the playoffs by the fucking Bruins (at least it wasn't Ottawa), and everything seems terrible, but Geno is still thinking about it. 

He's rich and successful, he has 8 more years of job security, he has a good house and friends and family who are always around. Does he need a partner to have a family? There are lots of ways to have kids.

\---

But he doesn't get to dwell on it for long. In the new season everything is terrifying and fragile. He spends too much of December in and out of the line up, and then Duper's knee is knocked out, and then Tanger has a fucking _stroke_ in January.

And then Geno's third Olympics is upon him suddenly, with nothing to show for the other two, and a body that is still recovering from December. He's only one player, it takes a team to win and a team to lose, but losing at home and losing so early is heartbreaking, unbearable.

Geno goes to Moscow to spend the rest of the Olympic break there, but he's barely through the door of his apartment when he decides to go back to Pittsburgh. Geno doesn't mean to be throwing a pity party for himself, but this is not where he was supposed to be in 2014. He has no medal, no partner, no concrete plans to build the family he wants, a country whose expectations he can never seem to live up to no matter how hard he tries.

Later, Geno will tell reporters Sid talked with him, and that's how he got out of his post-Olympics funk. It isn't that he's lying when he says that, just that it makes it seem like they talked about hockey, about Geno's play, and they didn't. 

Sid takes him to Primanti's, and afterwards they drive back to Sewickley together. They go to Sid's, and mess around on his artificial ice for a while. Geno still doesn't feel right, like there's a rock on his chest. Sid just keeps passing to him.

Sitting on the bench (because of course Sid's ridiculous home rink has a bench), Sid waits him out while Geno talks about Jeffrey, about how Natalie is doing in school in Dallas, about whether his Alien and Predator statues need company.

Eventually Geno slumps against Sid. He feels almost like he doesn't deserve this, but he knows that's ridiculous. Slumps happen, off-ice stuff can't always be kept off the ice. But he feels like a failure, to his country, to his team, to himself. 

Sid tugs him to his feet, away from the ice, and upstairs. Geno thinks Sid is going to tell him he should stay in a guest room for the night, and Geno is preparing to decline when Sid pushes through the door into his own bedroom.

Geno snaps his mouth shut, gaze roving around the room. It looks basically like he'd have expected.

In the dark quiet of Sid's room it's easy to talk about how he feels, about all the things he wants and hasn't done. Sometimes Geno gets so caught up in how great Sid is that he forgets that the Olympics is the really only significant difference in their careers.

"I'm have prove myself twice—worth to run away to NHL, worth for Russia let me play again." Geno is proud he found the right English words for that.

"Hey, no." Sid's voice is really close in the darkness. "You don't owe anyone anything. Team Russia is lucky to have you. We're lucky to have you." The sheets rustle and then Sid's arm is around him. " _I'm_ lucky to have you."

\---

Geno feels like he's back, light as air as he flies across the ice, as his passes connect, as he puts the puck in the back of the net. He gets two games, and then he busts up his other foot. Two games.

Sid shows up at his house with a baby, just lets himself right in, puts tiny Aubrey Kunitz into his arms ("You steal from Kuni?" "Shut up, Geno."), and stomps off to the kitchen. Geno thinks maybe he should be worried about what Sid is doing in there, but Aubrey has a little nose and wiggling fingers that need his attention.

Sid comes back in with an ice pack, a diaper bag, and a plate of sandwiches. He lifts Geno's feet into his lap and folds the gel pack over Geno's bandaged foot. They sit on the couch for a while in silence, the cold slowly seeping through to Geno's swollen foot, until Geno nudges Sid and he hands Geno a sandwich with a roll of his eyes.

Aubrey snuffles from her perch on Geno's chest as Geno eats his turkey sandwich. Sid rubs at Geno's ankle above the bandage, and finds an episode of Holmes Makes It Right.

Geno drifts in and out to the sound of Mike Holmes talking about the dangers of knob and tube wiring, the warm weight of Aubrey on his chest and the familiarity of Sid's hand on his ankle comforting him.

He wakes up when Sid moves out from under him, putting Geno's feet onto a cushion. For a moment he feels a clutching panic in his chest, like Sid is going to leave, like Sid is going to take Aubrey and leave. 

Geno grabs Sid's wrist.

"I've got to feed her or she's gonna start crying." 

"I'm do, you make bottle," Geno says stubbornly, hunching his shoulders around her. He can't chase the feeling Sid is about to leave with her.

Sid detaches his wrist from Geno's grip and disappears back into the kitchen. He does the temperature test on his hand in front of Geno. 

Aubrey drinks placidly, her little head in the crook of Geno's arm. Sid is peering down at her, pressed along Geno's side. Sid brushes a hand over her thin floofy baby hair, strokes her cheek. She's tiny and perfect and amazing, but Geno keeps looking at Sid: his big goofy smile, the sweep of his eyelashes, the shape of his jaw.

\---

After Team Russia wins Worlds, Geno starts looking into it, all those kids he visits in orphanages who need good homes. But the Kremlin believe a good Russian home is a home in Russia, not just a home with a good Russian family. Geno is offended; the Gonchars spend less and less time in Russia every year, and they still provide their girls a good Russian home.

Geno goes home every year, but retirement is years out and he couldn't sign a form saying he intends to live in Russia 90% of the time afterwards and not be perjuring himself.

\---

It weighs on his mind, even when their team is being torn apart by management, and when it starts falling apart again under the strain of too many injuries.

Sid is the only thing that's steady, reliable, predictable. Geno doesn't even realize how much he appreciates that until after they've clawed their way into a wild card slot with only 5 defensemen.

His ankle feels like shit, his knees make him feel 90 years old in the morning, his shoulders still twinge sometimes. Geno doesn't want to feel like an old man at 28, but if he's going to, he wants to have some old man things, like a family.

\---

Geno isn't really surprised they get bounced in the first round, and once he knows Sid is Captain for Canada, he isn't really that surprised Russia only takes Silver at Worlds. Skating toward the handshake line is surreal, and hugging Sid is more about feeling grounded than almost anything else.

He is kind of surprised how reluctant he feels to go back to his normal offseason routines; nothing about the last year has been business as usual, and it seems like pretending, to treat the offseason like it could be. Geno is pretty sure that's why he ends up outside Team Canada's locker room, Sid still in all his gear and a celebration waiting for their captain.

Sid looks so happy, happy like Geno hasn't seen in a while. He wants Sid to be happy like that always.

Geno buys the plane ticket impulsively, but going to see Sid during _this_ offseason is something that seems right, part of the trend of differentness characterizing the past year.

He's at YHZ before he realizes he never really mentioned any of those thoughts to Sid, whom he hasn't seen since the day of the gold medal game. Geno will be lucky if Sid is actually home and not at one of the five million weddings he attends every summer. 

_you live near airport yes?_ he texts, because he's pretty sure on the map it seemed way closer to Sid's lakehouse than to his parents'. 

_uh, sort of. why?_

He thumbs the contact button and calls Sid. Geno isn't really sure what he should say to explain, and maybe this way Sid will figure it out for him. 

"Hey!" It's stupidly good to hear Sid's voice, and to know it's only a few kilometres away. "Isn't it like the middle of the night for you?"

"No, Sid," he says, like Sid is being silly. "Is evening for me."

"... Are you at my airport?" And there it is. Geno sighs with relief, the tension draining out him and leaving him sagged over his suitcase.

"You come get? Airplane food terrible, Sid. So hungry. You promise for years Halifax fish _awesome_. Prove?"

Sid laughs, and doesn't ask. Geno can hear keys clattering and a dog barking and then the car door slamming shut. "I'm coming." The engine starts. "This better not be a prank."

"Never prank about hungry, Sid."

Sid hangs up on him, but that's fine, Geno knows Sid isn't going to drive while on the phone.

He's still slumped over his suitcase when Sid arrives. It's only June, but Sid's shoulders seem huge when Geno looks up at him.

"That has to be terrible for your back," Sid says, and helps haul Geno to his feet. Geno pulls him quickly into a hug, and Sid huffs a laugh against his neck. 

"This much better for back." Geno presses his chin against Sid's hair and squeezes his arms tighter around Sid's massive shoulders.

Geno is antsy once they get in the house. "Lots of hockey this year."

Sid pulls his head out of his pantry to give Geno a strange look. "I guess? Wouldn't have said no to more."

"Never enough," Geno agrees absently, rubbing his sweaty palms on his jeans. "Not enough babies either."

Sid stares at him. "No," he says hoarsely, "Hard to get enough of either one."

Geno folds his arms, and his back _does_ hurt from draping himself over his suitcase, how he's hunched in now making him acutely aware of it. "Russia say, don't live in Russia, no Russian baby."

"No citizenship or—"

"No adoption."

"Oh." Sid looks stricken, which Geno thinks is an extreme reaction to knowing that route of baby acquisition is cut off for Geno. "A-are you leaving then?"

"No!" his volume makes Sid startle. "Sid, no, Penguin forever. That never change." Sid is hunched in on himself too, hands under his arm pits rather than jammed in his pockets. Geno can't have that, that's a terrible sign.

He unfolds himself and wraps his long arms around Sid, trapping Sid's hands against his sides. "Just need new plan, and I'm think, who best person for help me?"

"Yeah?"

"Of course, I'm ask Gonch right away—" Geno says, scratching along Sid's sides until he's giggling and squirming to get away. When Sid sobers again, Geno continues, more seriously. "I'm promise you lots of hockey, and lots of babies. We have lots of hockey, but I'm have no babies for you, Sid."

Sid clear his throat and pulls back to meet Geno's gaze. "It's okay, Geno. It isn't your job to make sure I have access to babies."

"What if I want it be my job? Hockey better when we're team, maybe babies better too." Geno watches Sid face carefully, and as well as he knows it, he can't actually tell Sid is about to give Geno his biggest, happiest smile until he does it.

"Okay," Sid says, trying to look serious.

"Okay?"

"Yes." Sid leans up to kiss him, hands still trapped under his arms and elbows poking into Geno's chest.

\---

"You're going," Sid tells him while the tailor pokes Geno's bony ankles with straight pins.

Geno grumbles his reply. He never goes to teammates' weddings, but that's because they schedule them for when he's in Russia; that isn't Geno's fault. But he isn't in Russia, and Tanger is marrying Cathy in a week, so he doesn't have a reason not to go except that all his suits are in Russia or Pittsburgh and they're in Halifax.

"You already RSVP for one," he says, just to be a jerk.

Sid rolls his eyes. "Like Tanger was going to let that prevent him from finding a spot for you."

"What I'm eat?" Geno asks, trying to make it sound like a real worry. Although, that does seem harder to fix 7 days out than finding him a seat.

"I'm sure Cathy's sister will figure something out," Sid says breezily. "Or you can just steal everything off my plate like you usually do." Sometimes Geno forgets Sid is a jerk too.

Sid pays for the suit, giving Geno a flat look as he hands his card over. But it is Sid's fault Geno needs a new suit, at least twice-over.

Outside, Sid bumps their shoulders together. "It'll be fine, Geno. Cathy has been bugging me for weeks to bring someone. I thought she was going to start setting me up with her friends."

It _is_ fine, even if there are a ridiculous number of random people with cameras outside the church, and Sid's practice playoff beard has started to take over his entire face. 

Sid looks so good, so happy, it's hard for Geno to watch the ceremony instead of Sid. At the reception, he can barely keep his hands to himself, Sid's dress pants are so tight over his thighs. The tablecloths are long enough that their laps are pretty shrouded, at least enough that Geno can justify to himself putting a hand higher on Sid's thigh every time it isn't busy operating his cutlery.

Sid takes a go in the photo booth, Alex in his lap. As always, Sid is reluctant to let him go. "We gonna steal?" Geno whispers in his ear. Everyone has always made fun of them both about this, but not as a unit. It makes Geno stomach swoop to make the joke himself, about them doing it together.

The look on Sid's face is complicated, but he's fighting off a smile and a blush when Geno slings an arm around his shoulders.

\---

For the first time ever Geno celebrates his birthday in North America. It can't be hosted at Buddha Bar like most of his previous parties, but otherwise it isn't that different. He still has an over-the-top penguins-related theme, he still plasters "Geno," "71," and "11" on every available surface. Maybe the biggest difference is how small it is. Geno can't invite every Russian friend he would have from home, and they wouldn't all be able to come even if he did invite them all.

Besides, his birthday is only three days before the start of Sid's hockey camp. Sid is busy enough running around organizing that, and filming Tim Horton's commercials with fucking McKinnon, he doesn't need to worry about another massive event (Geno has a lot of Russian friends ok). Geno has to fight a burning urge to crash the filming, but he doesn't want a Tim Horton's commercial to be how they publicly come out. Or to neglect important last minute party planning because he's indulging his irrational jealousy.

He has to source a different aquarium, but Geno makes sure he still has actual penguins at his party; he's been planning on that for _months_. Sid hasn't really been involved in any of the party planning, because camp planning needed him and while the companies might be different than back home, Geno had planned a lot of birthday parties over the years (and Trina and Taylor are more than happy to help liaise with local businesses). The upside of this division of labour is when Sid walks into the party, basically into a sea of balloons and under the huge banner with Geno's numbers on them, he has no idea what he was walking into.

"Wow." Sid is clearly at a loss for words. He hasn't even seen the live penguins or the terrifying penguin costume Taylor picked out yet.

"Can't judge, Sid. You have clothing line called number, have ice rink in basement." Sid gets him back by withholding his present until every guest has left, even Sid's parents and sister. Geno is pretty sure it was the right call; he's definitely glad they're alone.

Fortunately, the hockey part of Sid's camp makes an easy and believable excuse to be there, and to be caught on camera. They manage not to steal any children, but none of them are babies anyway. A couple of the kids seem like they want be to stow-aways and just not leave camp when it ends on Sid's birthday, but Taylor makes sure every child is accounted for, no matter how much grumbling, tears, or begging is involved.

\---

Scarlett has been born by the time they're back in Pittsburgh. If it's possible, Sid looks more likely to steal her than he would have before he and Geno had started talking seriously with a Canadian adoption agency.

Estelle is riding around on Flower's shoulders. Geno thinks she's taking having a new baby sibling pretty well. He doesn't think his brother did so well, and he really doesn't want to remember how Natalie first reacted to the addition of Victoria.

"I can't believe you're here," Flower says at one point.

"Why? I'm here for weeks. See you at Tanger's wedding."

"I couldn't believe that either. You're never here." When Geno looks up from where Estelle has settled on his lap, Flower is looking at him more seriously than Geno would have expected. "You came with Sid." 

"Yes?" 

"And you aren't usually here in the summer at all," Flower says at last.

"So?"

"So that's different, significant. Sid didn't ask you to distract me while he steals my new baby?"

"No, no steal. Not need steal."

Flower laughs. "What, you have a bun in the oven?"

"No, have paperwork in adoption agency." Flower stops laughing, but he might look even happier.

"An agency here?"

"In Halifax." He and Sid haven't told anyone yet, and they haven't worked out a game plan for doing it, but if they can't tell Flower, how could they ever tell anyone?

\---

In the end, it doesn't matter that Canada was never going to tell _Sidney Crosby_ that he couldn't both adopt and live in Pittsburgh most of the year, because the baby they adopt isn't a ward of the state.

Sid's high school friend and his girlfriend decide they can't keep their baby, and almost as a joke they offer Sid first dibs. He's entirely serious when he says yes, and they can't really imagine they'd find better adoptive parents through an agency, so they send over the paperwork.

It's all entirely legal and above board, but—"You stole your friend's baby? None of mine were good enough?" is still the first thing Flower says when they tell him, his son on his hip. Geno is gleeful over this reaction; he honestly hadn't thought he had more room for happiness or excitement, but this is _perfect_.

When they get back to Pittsburgh for training camp with a baby, people have already spent so many years jokingly accusing Sid of stealing babies that no one can quite believe him when he shares their good news with the team. The first thing _anyone_ asks Sid is "Who did you steal that from?" They get stuck at "my friend's baby" when Sid explains, can't get past it to "adopted," can't be dissuaded from the idea that Sid obviously stole her— _look he just said so!_

Geno especially encourages the new guys to believe this tall tale. Every subsequent training camp involves Sid trailing after Geno shouting, "Stop telling people I stole our baby!" if Geno so much as looks sideways at a rookie.

"Rookies so small this year, you steal one and we have second baby," Geno tells Sid, just for the look of horror on his face.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to my recipient for the prompt and for leaving it open to my interpretation.
> 
> Thanks to my two awesome betas, fanofall and lupinus, for talking me down from freaking out and for helping the story be more solid and also for Lemieux to actually be spelled properly.


End file.
